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A Hijacking – Sea Piracy

A Hijacking, (original title: Kapringen) is a danish movie directed by Tobias Lindholm (who wrote with Thomas Vinterberg, the screenplay of The Hunt), who’s dealing with sea piracy. A danish ship is highjacked by Somalis, requesting a ransom of $15m and basically this is when the game begins. Four long months of negotiation, between the pirates and the company owning the ship. It is a hazardous game, such as the ones we could play in a Casino, blackjack or poker. You bet, you’re right, you win, but if you bet but you’re wrong, you lose, and in this case, the loss is pretty consequent. If there’s not a lot of action, there is plenty of tension and stress nourishing our excitement and keep us captivating. And the movie is directed the way a documentary would be, accentuating the feeling of reality, drowning us into a pretty anxious state of mind.

Both principal actors Søren Malling and Johan Philip Asbæk, plays perfectly their role, with seriousness, and humanity. They expressed a close-to-reality behavior, poignant and which contributed to the gripping aspect of the story. That’s a specificity of the danish movies, having this little sparkle of humanity, and psychological survival issues. In The Hunt, Festen, and A Hijacking, values and human principals are approached in a slow but poignant way, and show how people deal with psychological situations, most of time by keeping in mind or hang on to some memories giving them hope, and strength to keep fighting.
A wedding ring, and his family are those elements in A Hijacking, that Mikkel (Johan Philip Asbæk), holds on to.

A Hijacking is utterly convincing, compelling, and very beautiful. A great humanistic thriller to add to your top cinematographic experiences.